million machines inventing the future
by callmesandy
Summary: Charlie isn't the one killed by the shapeshifter at the beginning of season 2.


Notes: For jungle_ride. Not mine, no profit garnered. Opening quote and title from Summer, Season of Credulity by Andy Stallings. Thanks to the JAM! and A!

* * *

 _Meantime_  
 _these million machines_  
 _inventing the future_  
 _unsettle our discourse._  
 _In the air, there's_  
 _a dryness like gravel,_  
 _like good tinder. We are_  
 _matches. Weather rustling._  
 _The true event is waiting._

"I'm so glad you're alive, Charlie," Olivia said.

Charlie grinned, a little. He said, "I am, too."

"I was there, too," Peter said. "I was right next to him as we rounded the corner and saw that Jessup had killed the shapeshifter. I could have died."

Olivia shrugged. "I had a bad feeling about Charlie."

"Good to know you thought I'd die," Charlie said.

"Are they shutting us down?" Olivia looked at both men.

Peter shook his head. "Not at all. We have the footage of the shapeshifter, it was pretty effective. We have to save their sorry asses, you know."

"Particularly mine, apparently," Charlie said.

Olivia had a lot of visitors in the hospital. She hated being there so it made things a little easier. Peter would sit next to her and do whatever she wanted. Charlie talked to her about specific cases that had cropped up, threads they needed to pursue. She could have talked about the same things with Peter, she knew.

One day, Charlie brought a small tin can with a label on it that had flowers. He said, "Sonia made me. She insisted I bring you this. Her friend makes it. She swears it's the best muscle salve in the world."

"Sonia or her friend?" Olivia opened it and smelled it. It wasn't that fragrant, which was a relief. Olivia didn't want to smell like flowers.

"Both of them."

"Has she ever made you use it?"

"Once," Charlie said. He shrugged. "It didn't increase my pain."

"Strong recommendation," Olivia said.

It wasn't ineffective.

Charlie came by her apartment the day after she got home from the hospital. He brought another tin with flowers on the label. "Sonia makes me do this."

"And you can't say no," Olivia said. She leaned on her cane and started to walk to the bathroom to put the tin by her bathtub. Charlie rolled his eyes and took it from her, gesturing for her to sit down.

"You don't have to be that way with me," he said. It was like when Peter told her she wasn't good at letting people take care of her.

The day after she first visited Sam Weiss, Charlie showed up at her apartment. He stood in the doorway and said, "Come on, Sonia insists we have you over for dinner."

"She insists," Olivia said. She got in his car.

It was easy to see why Sonia had insisted. "You're pregnant," Olivia said, smiling so wide her face almost hurt. "You look beautiful."

"Thank you," Sonia said. "I was sure Charlie would tell you the minute I told him."

"He didn't even hint," Olivia said. She smacked Charlie's arm.

Olivia told Peter who did not tell Walter. Charlie said, "I appreciate that."

They were driving in a car somewhere, Olivia was falling asleep. "Agent Jessup was asking me again today if I was starting to remember."

Charlie hmmed. "Are you?"

"Maybe I don't want to," she said.

"Maybe you won't get an option like that," Charlie said. "Brains are weird."

Olivia laughed. "That's something you've learned over the last year, huh?"

"Weird, I tell you," Charlie said.

Walter wouldn't let up. She ate the worms. Then Peter rang the bell and she remembered.

She called Charlie on her way down to New York City. He didn't answer. She kept calling. She tried Broyles and didn't get an answer. She called Peter, at least he answered. "Liv?"

"I can't get Charlie or Broyles on the phone," she said.

"Something happened," Peter said. "I don't know what, someone from the FBI called us - Astrid left to help. With something. I'm sorry," Peter said. "I wish I knew more."

She hung up and kept calling Charlie. He finally answered. "I'm okay, okay?"

"What happened?" She was entering Manhattan.

"Jessup didn't kill the shapeshifter. The shapeshifter killed her and took her place. Which we found out when she tried to kill Broyles and me. She wouldn't go down until Broyles managed to shoot her in the head. She had a device on her, Liv, and like the guys at the cryo place, she bled mercury," Charlie said. "She was a good agent, Liv."

"I know," Olivia said. "I'm still glad you're alive."

"Did you remember where the head is?"

"Not yet," she said. She didn't until she was speaking to Nina. She called Broyles. Broyles said, "They just hit Laston-Hennings, I just got the notification. You did your best, Agent."

"Did I?" She sat in the Massive Dynamic lobby, trying to catch her breath.

Charlie was a dogged cop. He went back to old cases, from the previous years and followed up on abandoned leads. He was the one who suggested to Peter and Olivia that maybe Bell had been behind ZFT after all.

Peter rubbed his chin and looked at a fixed point on the floor, which meant he was thinking about it. Olivia tried to shuffle the pieces in her head. "I don't get his motive in bringing me over, then," Olivia said.

"We don't know his motive because we don't know all the facts," Peter said. "Logically, it makes perfect sense."

It nagged at Olivia and she didn't know what to do with the information. Because Charlie was Charlie he brought it up periodically. Once after the case in Seattle, twice after the case with the cosmonaut.

She was freaking out when Peter was kidnapped by the Carson kid. She tried to keep it under control. She had to get Walter to work or Peter would die. Peter, she thought. Charlie kept glancing over at her, he could see right through her. He could see what she was hiding from herself.

Nina helped and Astrid helped. When everything was done, Olivia drove to the Bishops' place for no real reason. She wanted to make sure Peter was alright, even though she'd seen the report from the hospital and talked to Peter. But this was later. She knocked on his door and prepared to say something more concrete than "I just wanted to see you."

Peter smiled at her and stepped out onto the porch. He said, "It's good to see you."

"I'm happy you're alive," she said, smiling. She was nervous, looking up to see his eyes.

He gave her his sweet half-lidded smile. "Me, too. I'm glad you stopped by."

Olivia had run out of things to say. Peter took her hand and then kissed her. Kissing on the porch like teenagers, she thought. But she didn't want to be anywhere else.

Charlie noticed, of course. He always noticed. She couldn't believe she'd ever convinced herself he hadn't noticed John. As she and Charlie pored over all their Observer pictures to see if they could spot the second Observer, he looked up at her and said, "You look happy."

"No comment," she said.

"Make sure there's no NSA undercover this time, okay? It's all I ask," Charlie said.

"It won't be all you ask."

They burst into Peter's childhood home just as Newton and his men were unhooking Walter. Newton injected something in Walter and then took off running, Charlie and Olivia at his heels. Olivia got off some spectacular shots on the two shapeshifters in the van, forcing Newton to come out and face them both. Newton said his bit about having poisoned Walter.

Olivia heard Charlie calling Peter. There was silence and then Charlie said, "So you already administered the cure. I guess they should have disconnected Walter from his missing brains." Charlie and Olivia started shooting at Newton. They both got him in the head but he was only slowed down. "I'm not like these simple men," Newton said. He was bleeding mercury but only seemed slightly slowed.

Olivia launched herself at the man, taking out a knife and hacked at whatever she could. Newton struggled, grabbing at her and nearly breaking one of her arms, but she kept cutting. Charlie pulled her off Newton and put his gun right at the man's face and pulled the trigger. It seemed to stop Newton. His body was still twitching even with the bits of his face and "brain" splattered on the ground.

"That is so, that is gross," Charlie said.

"We need to, we should take him apart. Maybe Walter or Brandon can figure out something important," Olivia said, cradling her arm.

"You and Walter need to go to the hospital," Charlie said.

Peter came in while she was trying to get dressed. Charlie was sitting in the chair, laughing at her. "Naturally, he didn't offer to help," she said to Peter.

"This is clear boyfriend activity," Charlie said.

Peter didn't even react, just gently guided Olivia into her shirt and jacket. She said, "Of course you think I told Charlie."

"Hey, I don't think you told Charlie which I wouldn't be upset if you had," Peter said. "I assume Charlie figured it out just by looking at you."

"Which is true," Charlie said. "I'm pretty good at this investigating job."

They heard a querulous "Peter" from two rooms over. Peter sighed and said, "I'll be right back."

Olivia sank back onto the hospital bed. "Charlie, what if there's more like Newton? What if more shapeshifters try to infiltrate the team? They still don't have the secret to opening the door, what are they going to try next?" She bit her lip and then looked at him. His mercury stained blazer was long gone, and his shirt wasn't in the greatest shape, either. She realized he would be a dad in a month or so. She couldn't let him follow her or Peter into stupid danger anymore.

He leaned forward and patted her knee. "Hey, Olivia. It's okay. We'll figure it out. You're gonna be fine."

She believed him.


End file.
